Getting to the Bottom of it
by ficwriterjet
Summary: A tag to the episode 'Hold onto Sixteen'. Rachel feels guilty about what she's done, and asks Finn to help her feel better. WARNING: M/F consensual spanking.


**Author's Note:** This story takes place during the Glee episode 'Hold on to Sixteen' from season 3. Rachel feels guilty for what she's done, and Finn helps her get over it. Written December 2011.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters, and I'm not making any money from this story.

**Warning:** Consensual M/F spanking.

GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF IT Finn took a large bite of pizza and observed his girlfriend with concern. She'd taken a slice of pizza, but hadn't actually taken a bite for the past five minutes. Finn had devoured two slices and started on a third before he noticed. He put his arm around her waist, swallowed the bite in his mouth, and leaned down to whisper in her ear, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said without sounding convincing.

They were at the local pizza place with all of their friends, celebrating their win at sectionals from earlier that day. Mr. Schue and Miss. Pillsbury had paid for the food, and everyone was eating and smiling, except Rachel.

Finn knew it must be hard for her since she hadn't been allowed to perform with them. He whispered, "Do you want me to take you home?"

She shook her head. "No, this is your celebratory feast. We can't leave early."

He brushed some of her hair behind her ear and said, "But you don't feel like celebrating."

Rachel shook her head to deny it, "No it's not…"

Finn leaned down and kissed her mid sentence. He broke it off quickly, knowing she wasn't fond of kissing in front of other people. "We can go to my house to talk about why you're unhappy. My mom and Burt are gone again this weekend, so we'll have the place to ourselves."

"Well…" she didn't want to tare him away from the party, but she honestly wasn't in the mood to celebrate either. "…okay."

The whole group was sitting on one large bench style table, and Finn spotted Kurt sitting next to Blaine at the end across from him. Finn took three large bites of pizza to finish his slice, and said, "Be right back."

He went to Kurt, and said quietly, "You're getting a ride home with Blaine right?"

"Yes."

"Do you think you guys could give me and Rachel a couple of hours alone before you come home?"

Kurt turned to Blaine with his eyebrows raised to see what he thought. Blaine said, "You could come to my house for a while."

"I'll be home around nine," Kurt said with a smile.

"Thanks." Finn headed back to Rachel, and the two said their goodbyes to everyone.

# # #

Once they got to Finn's house, the two sat on the couch together. Finn said, "Okay, I'm all ears."

"I didn't mean to ruin the party for you," Rachel said. "I'm sorry I don't feel like celebrating."

"It's okay." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I probably wouldn't feel like celebrating if I'd been banned from the performance either."

Her eyes filled with tears. "That's not it."

Finn pulled her over to sit in his lap, and he wrapped his arms around her. "Then what?"

Laying her head on his chest made it easier to talk. "I feel so guilty about all of it. Stuffing the ballot boxes in the first place. Getting suspended. Missing out on sectionals. I'm furious with myself for messing up, and today when I was watching you guys perform, I was completely jealous. Which is ridiculous, because it's my own fault that I couldn't be a part of it."

He rubbed a hand up and down her back. "You don't have to feel guilty about it anymore. None of us are mad at you. And you said your dads forgave you too right?"

Rachel nodded. "They didn't even ground me. Didn't punish me at all. They said being suspended and missing sectionals was punishment enough, especially since I was trying to help a friend."

"See," he said softly, "no need to feel guilty. And sectionals are over now, so you don't need to be jealous anymore. You'll compete with us at regionals, and we'll all kick ass together."

She sat up on his lap and said, "Logically I know that. But I still _feel_ guilty, even though I know I shouldn't."

He reached up and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "What can I do to help?"

She took his hand in both of hers, and held it down in her lap. While looking down she whispered, "Being suspended wasn't punishment enough. Would you be willing to punish me?"

Confused Finn said, "Punish you? I just told you no one is mad at you anymore. We all forgive you Rachel. You need to forgive yourself. You were already suspended and excluded from sectionals. That seems pretty harsh already. And even if I thought you deserved some kind of punishment, it's not my place to say what that would be."

Turning bright red, Rachel scooted off his lap, and stood up. She stuttered, "No… of course… you're right… I don't know what I was saying… Just forget I brought it up."

Even more confused than before Finn stood and said gently, "It's okay."

She backed up towards the door and said, "I've got to go."

"Don't go. I can tell you're even more upset now than before. Stay and talk to me. Tell me what's going on."

"I'm sorry," she whispered and ran out of the house.

He followed her. "Rachel wait!"

She didn't stop, but continued running down the driveway, and took a left on the sidewalk to head to her house four blocks away.

He ran after her and caught up with her less than a block away. He put a hand on her upper arm to stop her, and said, "Rachel, stop."

She stopped long enough to yell, "Leave me alone!"

He quickly let her go, and watched her run towards her house.

Frustrated, Finn slowly walked back to his house, trying to figure out what he'd done wrong.

# # #

That night, when Kurt got home, he found Finn sitting on the couch staring at a blank TV screen. Kurt tentatively said, "Is everything okay?"

"No." Finn gestured for Kurt to come sit next to him. "Can I talk to you about something?"

Kurt sat on the edge of the couch with his legs crossed. "Shoot."

With an earnest expression, Finn said, "You have to promise to keep this between us."

"Okay." Kurt said easily.

"No." Finn locked eyes with him. "It's about Rachel, and it's personal, so you've got to promise not to tell anyone. Not even Blaine."

"I promise." Kurt said sincerely.

"When Rachel and I got here, she said she still felt guilty about everything. I told her that we'd all forgiven her, so there was no reason to be upset anymore. She said she knew she shouldn't but that she still felt guilty anyway. Then she asked…" Finn's voice lowered a notch. "She asked if I would punish her." He turned to Kurt and said, "I don't get it."

"Wow. What did you say?" Kurt asked.

"That she'd already been punished enough, and that it wasn't my place anyway. I mean her dads didn't even punish her at all, so I don't know what she expects me to do."

Those words put an idea in Kurt's head. He put a hand over his mouth and said, "Oh."

"Oh?" Finn asked.

Kurt blushed as he put the pieces together, and considered them. "Oh God." He put his head in his hands, embarrassed even by the thought. But the more he thought about it, the more right it seemed.

"Oh God what?" Finn asked getting nervous.

Kurt kept his head in his hands and said, "I could be wrong, but my guess is that she wants you to spank her."

"What?" he said quietly, trying to understand. "Why would you think that?"

Cringing, and keeping his eyes on the floor Kurt said, "Look at the way she dresses, Finn. It's more schoolgirl than woman. I'd even say it's more little girl than schoolgirl with those knee high socks. Heck, look at the size difference between you two. I know back when I had a crush on you…" Kurt covered his face again. "Never mind."

"No, it's okay. Tell me what you were going to say."

Kurt mumbled, "I noticed the size of your hands, though that was for entirely different reasons."

"Oh." Finn said thinking about what Rachel had been doing when she mentioned punishment.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have…"

Finn cut him off. "No it's fine, it's just… When she mentioned punishment, she was holding my hand out flat with one hand, and trailing her fingers across my palm with the other."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Silence settled between the boys for a few moments. Eventually Finn shook his head and said, "But she's so pushy. That can't be right."

Kurt muttered, "I wish I didn't know this, but thanks to one of the guys in The Warblers who couldn't keep his big trap shut, I know more than I'd like to about this subject. If I'm right, then Rachel is pushy because she's topping from below."

"Topping from below?"

"Yes she's pushy, but isn't part of that because she's trying to get you to take control. She's encouraged you to be the leader of New Directions since you joined. And I've seen the way she smiles and encourages you to stand up in class and tell the rest of us what to do."

Finn frowned.

"Don't get me wrong, Finn. You're a good leader, and we'd all follow you even if she weren't trying to get you to lead. I'm just pointing out that Rachel isn't bossy the way some girls are. You were with Quinn for a long time, and I know she bossed you around."

Slowly Finn nodded. There was a distinct difference. When Quinn wanted something, she just told Finn that was the way it was, and expected him to go along with it. When Rachel wanted something, she talked about it until he saw things her way. And she did encourage him to take charge.

"Maybe," Finn said.

"Would you… I mean… Is it something you'd even want to do?" Kurt looked over at his stepbrother for the first time in the conversation.

"I don't know." He thought it over, and then blushed as he said, "I don't hate the idea if it's something she wants me to. I even like the idea of doing it for fun, but I doubt that's what she's looking for."

"Come on." Kurt stood up, and headed towards the stairs, "You need to do some Internet research tonight before you talk to Rachel about this."

Finn got up and followed Kurt. While they walked to Finn's room, Kurt said, "If Rachel couldn't even tell you what she wanted, then she's probably embarrassed about it, so you're going to have to do most of the talking, and you'll want to sound confident."

Kurt sat at Finn's desk and opened his laptop. While he searched for sites, he said, "You tell her what you think she wants, and let her answer with a yes or no. If she can't give you a definite yes or no, then tell her to think it over until she can. And make her give you a safeword before you attempt any actual spanking."

Once Kurt had three different informative sites open, he got up and gestured for Finn to take a seat. "I'm going to go call Blaine, and pretend we never had this conversation."

Instead of sitting down, Finn put a hand on Kurt's shoulder. Once they hand eye contact, Finn said sincerely, "Thank you Kurt. It means a lot to me that you helped even though it obviously makes you uncomfortable."

Smiling, Kurt said, "Well that's what brothers are for right?"

"Right." Finn patted his shoulder and sat down to do research.

Later that night, after doing hours of research, Finn had decided on a course of action.

# # #

The next morning Finn was eating breakfast when Kurt came down still in pajamas. Finn said, "It's Saturday, do you have plans with Blaine?"

Kurt poured himself some cereal. "We're going to the movies this afternoon."

Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Finn said, "Can you make sure to stay out of the house for a few hours? I want to invite Rachel over to talk."

Kurt pretended he didn't know exactly what Finn and Rachel were going to do while he was at the movies. "Sure. I'll leave at noon to go to Blaine's house, and I won't come home until five o'clock."

"Thanks."

Needing to change the subject, Kurt said, "Dad texted me this morning. They're staying an extra day."

"Yeah, Mom texted me too."

The boys smiled at each other, and ate their breakfast while talking about Burt's new political carrier.

# # #

Saturday morning Rachel couldn't face herself in the mirror while drying her hair. She didn't know how she could possibly face Finn ever again, and eventually decided that if he brought it up again, she was going to pretend she had no idea what he was talking about.

When her cell phone rang, and she saw Finn's ID, she almost didn't answer. But she knew that wasn't fair to him. "Hi Finn, how are you today?" she asked with false cheer.

After a short pause, Finn said, "I'm good. Can you come over to my house for lunch today?"

"Lunch?" she asked. Starting to panic, she said, "I don't' know Finn…"

"We need to talk, Rachel. I could come over to your house right now if…"

"No!" She said much too loudly. "I mean, that's okay. I'll be there for lunch."

"Noon?"

"Okay."

"See you then."

They both hung up, and Rachel sat down on her bed. "Crap."

# # #

At exactly twelve o'clock, Rachel knocked at Finn's door. Kurt answered with a smile. "Hi Rachel."

Happy to see Kurt there, Rachel smiled back. "Hi Kurt." She knew he would be a good buffer between her and Finn, and the things she didn't want to talk about. "Are you going to join us for lunch?"

Kurt looked her up and down once, taking in the yellow sundress that stopped just above her knees, the white knee highs, and black loafers on her feet. Trying to ignore the images that came to his mind, he muttered, "Nope. I'm going out to meet Blaine"

"Oh," she said with a frown.

He called back over his shoulder, "Bye Finn. If I'm going to be home much later than five, I'll give you a call."

Finn came out of the kitchen wiping his hands on a dishtowel. "Okay. Have fun."

Rachel frowned and watched Kurt walk to the car. When she turned back around Finn was standing right in front of her.

"Hi," he said with a loving smile.

"Hi," she gave him a tentative smile back.

He gave her a quick kiss, and then gestured for her to come in. She went and sat on the couch while he shut the door behind her.

"Hungry?" He asked.

In reality she didn't feel like she could eat much of anything right now. "Sure."

"It'll be ready in half an hour." He sat down next to her on the couch and put a hand on her knee. "We need to talk about yesterday."

"No, we _really_ don't." Rachel said, looking towards the door, and wishing she hadn't come.

"Rachel, look at me," Finn said quietly. She had trouble dragging her eyes to his. He put his other hand on the side of her face. "I changed my mind. I'm perfectly willing to punish you if that's what you want."

"What?" she whispered. Her eyes opened wide, and like a deer caught in the headlights, she froze.

"Everyone has forgiven you, but if you can't forgive yourself, then I'll help." He took one of her hands in both of his and said, "Have either of your dads ever spanked you?"

Her breathing was shallow, and her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Her head moved side to side half an inch each way, giving a negative response.

"Do you think it would help you feel less guilty about everything if I spanked you?"

She looked down at his hands covering hers, and shrugged.

With that simple gesture, Finn knew Kurt had been right. If someone had asked him that same question, he wouldn't have hesitated to tell them no. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Well, why don't you think about that for a little while. I'm going to make a salad to go with lunch. Come see me when you have an answer."

Once she was alone in the living room, she tried to calm down by taking deeper breaths. She couldn't believe how surreal it was to have Finn bring up spanking, when she'd been having fantasies about that very thing for months. She could barely admit to wanting it herself, how could she possibly admit to Finn that she wanted it? But if she passed up this opportunity, there might never be another one. Ten minutes later, she still wasn't any closer to an answer, and her stomach was in knots.

Finn opened the kitchen door a crack and poked his head into the living room. "You okay in there?"

"Yeah." She said softly, keeping her eyes on her lap.

With a sigh, he walked over and sat down next to her. "Any closer to an answer?"

She shook her head no.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Wanna tell me what you're thinking?"

"I don't know if I can," she whispered.

"How about I tell you what I'm thinking."

"Okay."

"I'm thinking that I love you, and I want you to be happy. I'm pretty sure that spanking you lightly for fun would be a turn on for me. Spanking you as a punishment isn't something that sounds fun to me, but it doesn't sound so awful that I can't do it. And if you want something else entirely, that's okay too. But you have to let me know."

She leaned into him, and buried her face in his shirt. She whispered, "If I say I want punishment, what would you do exactly?"

"Take you to the kitchen, put you over my lap, and smack your butt with my hand about twenty times. But if you want a punishment spanking, we have to have a safeword first. You know what that is?"

She nodded.

"Do you have one?"

"No."

"We can just use the word 'safeword' if that works for you."

After a pause she nodded again.

"Because if it's punishment, I'm not going to stop spanking until I've given you at least twenty. That means you can holler at me to stop, and you can struggle and complain, but I'll just keep going until I think it's enough. Unless you say, 'safeword'. If you do that, I let you up, and everything stops."

Rachel took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and whispered, "That's what I want."

Having expected this answer, Finn nodded to himself. "Now, or after lunch?"

"Now," she said, knowing she'd lose her nerve if she had to wait too long.

He nudged her head up off his chest so he could look her in the eye. "You sure?" 

"I am." She leaned in to kiss him. When they broke apart she said, "I love you."

"I love you too." He stood up and held out his hand for her.

He led her to the kitchen, took a kitchen chair out from under the table, and set it down a few feet away. Keeping a hold of her hand, he sat down, and pulled gently at her to get her face down across his lap. He could feel her whole body trembling once she was in place. He wrapped an arm around her waist and held her up snug against his stomach. He put the flat of his free hand against her bottom and said softly, "I want you to think about what you did. You knew stuffing those ballot boxes was the wrong thing to do, but you did it anyway."

Her eyes filled with tears, and she nodded in agreement. She tensed when she felt Finn's hand leave her butt, and his grip tighten around her waist. The first slap hit dead center. Her whole body would have jerked forward across his lap with the force of the blow if he hadn't been holding her in place.

"Oh!" She gasped, and the tears that had been building slid down her face.

Finn had done quite a bit of research last night, and was aiming for two swats per second, and didn't let her exclamation of pain stop him from bringing his hand down just as hard again. His hand was large enough to cover a good portion of her ass with each strike, and he aimed the second smack directly under the first, catching part of her upper thighs in the process.

"Oh ow!" She said, unable to fully recover from the pain of the first smack before the second one had landed. Her hands automatically pushed on Finn's thigh, to try and get her body away from the pain.

He easily held her in place, and gave her another solid slap on the right sit spot.

"Ow!" She yelled louder than before, and her right leg kicked slightly in response.

He put a matching slap on the left sit spot.

"Ow! Finn!" She yelled. Her left leg kicked hard enough that her loafer fell to the floor.

He smacked her dead center again.

"OW!" She tried to push herself away again.

Following his pattern, he brought his hand down on the lower part of her ass, and watched her right loafer skid across the kitchen floor.

"Finn, stop!" she yelled.

With grim determination, he smacked her right sit spot again, just as hard.

"Owwwwww!" She yelled in frustration, as she pushed on his thigh, and kicked both her feet in the air.

He slapped her left sit spot, and she threw her hand back to cover as much of her bottom as she could, forcing him to stop mid swing.

She slumped down over his lap breathing hard, and keeping her hand in place.

"Rachel," he said calmly. "Do you remember the word you need to use if you want this to stop."

Tensing again, she slowly nodded. Her mind raced. This spanking was much worse than she'd imagined, and she did want it to stop, but she didn't want to use the safeword. She'd been feeling guilty all week, and she felt that she deserved to be seriously unhappy during this punishment, but that didn't make it easy to endure.

"Do you want to use it?"

"No," she whispered and sniffed loudly.

Feeling bad for her, he said softly, "Okay, then you need to move your hand."

"Just please not so hard. Please!"

"It's punishment. You don't get a say in how hard, and you don't get a say in when I stop. Move your hand, or I'll move it for you."

She started crying in earnest, but her hand moved back to Finn's thigh.

He put the flat of his hand back on her bottom and said, "If your hand comes back again before we're done, I will pull your dress up, and your panties down."

"Noooo!" she wailed.

He lifted his hand and brought it down just as hard as before, using the same four swat pattern, and the same tempo as before. He didn't find it nearly as difficult as he thought he would to spank her while she protested. Knowing she could stop him with one word, made it much easier to see her other protests as involuntary reactions to the pain.

For the next six swats, Rachel's mouth worked double time as she yelped, and begged Finn to stop at the same time. Her feet kicked, and she tried to wiggle out of his grasp. When that didn't work, she couldn't stop herself from reaching a hand back again to get a few seconds of reprieve from the barrage of swats.

With a frown, Finn paused again. He'd kept count, and he'd given her a total of fourteen so far.

"You've got six left to go," he said firmly. He let go of her waist for a moment so he could use both of his hands. He took her wrist in one hand, and pulled her hand away from her bottom. Then he used his other hand to pull her yellow sundress up, exposing her white cotton panties.

"No Finn! I'm sorry, please don't!" She tried to pull her hand out of his grip, but he held her tight.

He put a finger in the waistband of her panties and said, "Do you want to use your safeword?"

She shook her head, and said, "No! I want y... you to st... stop because you think I... I've been punished enough!"

He shucked her panties down to her knees and looked at the damage he'd done so far. Her skin was red, but it didn't look as bad as he thought it might. He kept her wrist in his hand, and wrapped his arm back around her waist, so that her hand was trapped under her own stomach. He said quietly. "Stuffing those ballot boxes got you suspended, and because of that you may not get into NYADA."

He gave her a solid swat to the left sit spot. His eyebrows raised at how loud the skin on skin smack sounded as it reverberated off the kitchen walls.

"Owwwww!" Rachel's voice went up an octave, and she shifted her hips as if to roll away from him. The difference in pain was shocking.

He put a matching swat on the right sit spot, and watched her bottom and upper thigh turn almost white where he'd struck it before it changed to an even darker red than before. Finn paused and said, "I know your heart was in the right place when you did it, but doing something wrong to help a friend, is still doing something wrong."

"I'm sorry! Really I am!"

"I know," he said softly. He tightened his grip around her, and aimed the last four smacks all dead center on her bottom, spanking her as quickly as he could.

"Aaaaah!" she yelled, and kicked her legs as frantically as she could with her panties sliding down her calves.

Once he was done, Finn used his spanking hand to gently pat her back. "Okay, it's over."

Crying, she slumped down over his lap with relief.

He let go of her captured wrist, and smoothed her skirt back down into place. After a few seconds, he said, "Come here," and used both hands to gently lift her and turn her around, so that she was sitting in his lap with her bottom off to one side.

She hid her face in his shoulder, and grabbed a fist full of his shirt in each hand. He wrapped his arms around her and said, "Everyone else already forgave you. Now that you've been punished, you need to forgive yourself too."

She nodded into his chest, without even considering what he'd said, unwilling to disagree with anything he said in this moment.

Finn stopped talking, and just held her quietly, waiting for her to make the next move.

She was amazed at the intense burn she felt all over her bottom and thighs. The sharp sting was gone, but the burn it left in its wake was seriously unpleasant. While she tried to stop crying, she thought over what had just happened. On the one hand she'd hated it, but on the other hand, she'd asked for it and even felt that she'd deserved it. She finally felt like she'd paid for what she'd done, and thought this would help her to forgive herself.

Once her tears slowed, she thought about Finn. She was frankly amazed that he'd been so forceful about the whole thing. Yesterday she would have assumed that Finn couldn't continue to spank her if she was complaining about it. She was always pushing him to take charge, but it was shocking how far he'd taken that today. She wrapped both her arms around his neck, and hugged him tight. "Thank you," she whispered.

Genuinely smiling for the first time since putting her over his knee, Finn hugged her tighter and said, "You're welcome. Did it help?"

"Yes."

He kissed the top of her head. "I'm glad." A few seconds later, he said, "Let's get you cleaned up." He lifted her off his lap and set her on her feet. He leaned down and slid her panties back up her legs.

When he got them to mid thigh, she put her hands over his and said quietly, "I got it."

He let go, and she pulled them up the rest of the way while he watched. He grabbed the loafer that was on the floor by the chair, and handed it to her. She put it on while he went to retrieve the other one from across the room. He came back with the shoe and found Rachel wiping the tears off her face with the back of one hand while she rubbed her bottom with the other.

"There are tissues in the bathroom," Finn offered.

She took the loafer and put it on her foot, feeling more like herself by the second. "I'll be right back," she said with a watery smile.

Once she was gone, he put the chair away and started getting the lunch on the table.

Rachel shut the bathroom door behind her, and looked at her face in the mirror. The image looking back at her was not attractive. She had a blotchy red nose, puffy eyes, smudged make up, and mussed hair. Feeling compelled, she turned her back to the mirror, and craned her neck around to look at her own behind. She lifted the skirt, and pulled down the panties to see her skin. Her eyes opened wide. The skin was so _red_. She put a hand back to touch it. The warmth made her feel oddly pleased. Knowing that Finn had put it there made her feel warm all over. Not wanting to linger too long, she fixed her clothing, and set to work fixing her appearance as best she could, which wasn't too difficult after borrowing a few of Kurt's skin products.

When she came back to the kitchen, Finn was already sitting at the table. He stood when she walked in, and pulled a chair out for her. "Veggie burgers and salad," he said. "And I put a throw pillow on your chair."

"Thank you." She kissed him before gingerly sitting down.

He sat and said, "I hope you like this kind of burger. There were a bunch to choose from."

"I'm sure it will be fine."

He took a bite himself and shrugged, "Not awful."

After they'd both had a few bites, Finn said, "Rachel?"

"Yes?"

"We should probably talk about what just happened."

She put her burger back on her plate, and focused her gaze on her plate. "Okay."

"I figure it's hard for you to talk about, so I won't say much. I just wanted to let you know it's okay with me that you wanted to be spanked. It's okay with me if you want it again. I just hope that next time you're able to tell me yourself, instead of making me guess."

After a long pause, Rachel said, "I'll try."

He put a hand over hers on her lap. "Good. I'm done talking about it now, you can eat your burger."

Smiling sheepishly, she took another bite of her burger.

He said, "We have the house to ourselves until five. After lunch we could snuggle on the couch and watch a movie."

She swallowed her bite, looked him in the eye, and said, "Or we could go up to your room, and snuggle on your bed."

He grinned. He hadn't wanted to push for sex, because he wasn't sure what kind of a mood she would be in after that kind of emotional outpouring. But now that she'd given him an opening, he said, "I could rub some lotion on the injured area."

She raised an eyebrow and said, "I'd like that."

He put his burger down. "I'm really not that hungry yet."

"Me either." She dabbed at her mouth with the napkin, and put it on the table.

He stood and held out a hand to her. She put her hand in his, and stood as well. He leaned down and lifted her up in his arms in a bridal hold.

She gasped in surprise, and then giggled as he carried her up the stairs.

The End


End file.
